Veterans'\Rememberance Day
To my Commonwealth friends, it may look down right war loving for the US to have Veterans Day in November and Memorial Day in May.
Memorial Day is the day America remembers her war dead. It has been commemorated since the 1860s. For my UK and Commonwealth readers, the various claims for the first Memorial Day span the period from Palmerston’s second term as PM to Gladstone’s first term.
Veterans Day of course was started in 1919. MD had been commemorated for full fifty years before the first Veterans Day. So, it is the day America remembers her living veterans
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Thank you to our Military men and women for your service to our country, and also to the families behind you.
Pic of my son in Afghanistan (from Skype)
From Sunday afternoon (2:00 a.m. his time)
Serving in an engineering battalion detecting and blowing up roadway IEDs (bombs)
Staff Sgt Roger Peet
Was in London once for Remembrance Day .. (Think that’s what they call it there…)
It was VERY moving … fields of paper poppies all around Westminster Abbey. It was in 1999 or 2000. We didn’t realize the celebration going on. When we got there we found that we had missed the “Queen Mother” but an hour or so.
Here in the States - when I was young, my parent’s always called November 11 “Armistice Day”. It was important to them .. They remembered it as the end of the WWI, as well as to honor Veteran’s. ( That is what THEY grew up learning.. )
My parents were active in the VFW .. every November and May they participated in collecting with the Poppies .. seemed like we always had them on the rear view mirror.. I still donate when I see it - it’s not as common now.
It’s especially “special” now - as my Mom passed away on November 11, 2008.
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